Leo Hohmann

More than 2,000 criminal non-citizens, including many here illegally, are released from prison every year onto the streets of American cities.

Casey Chadwick was killed just over a year ago in her Norwich, Connecticut, apartment.

Americans like Casey Chadwick, 25, have paid with their lives. She was stabbed to death outside her apartment in Norwich, Connecticut, by an illegal criminal alien from Haiti who had already served 17 years in prison for attempted murder. ICE had tried to deport him several times but Haiti would not accept him.

The problem is that 23 countries will not take back their criminal migrants, according to a DHS report cited by Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The government has not named all 23 uncooperative nations but WND has been able to identify 13 of them.

Haiti refused to accept Jean Jacques, ICE was forced to free him under a 2001 Supreme Court ruling.

The five worst are Cuba, China, Somalia, India and Ghana.

Others on the list include:

Iraq

Iran

Afghanistan

Libya

Algeria

Vietnam

Haiti

Zimbabwe

The majority of the countries on the list are either communist or Islamic.

Three of the countries – Somalia, Iran and Libya – are on President Trump’s list of terrorist-sponsoring countries from which he wants to ban travel into the U.S. for 90 days while better vetting programs can be developed. His executive order on the temporary travel ban is being held up by federal district judges in Hawaii and Maryland.

The criminals include murderers, rapists and child molesters.

Fair is fair right?

Adding to the indignity and lack of fair play, the U.S. continues to grant visas and refugee status to foreign nationals from these 23 countries. And in many cases, the U.S. also continues to send foreign aid to these recalcitrant nations that refuse to cooperate with ICE in taking back their criminals.

Several congressmen have tried to rectify the injustice but have yet to get their bills passed. The latest is Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, who has introduced a bill that would cut off all foreign aid to countries that don’t cooperate with ICE deportation efforts.

In a statement emailed to WND Babin’s office said:

“There is absolutely no reason that criminal aliens should be released back onto America’s streets, yet that is exactly what is happening by the thousands each and every year because their countries of origin refuse to take them back. My bill upholds the rule of law and holds these countries accountable by stripping their foreign aid and travel visas if they fail to cooperate. President Trump has announced that deporting the roughly 2 million criminal aliens in our country is a top priority for his presidency – and this legislation is a critical component to any such effort.”

Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas

Babin said only one Democrat in the House has supported his bill – Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson interviewed Cuellar for her upcoming Sunday edition of Full Measure in which she asked the congressman about the outrageous leniency with which the U.S. treats the 23 nations refusing to cooperate with U.S. immigration officials on deportations.

In addition to the 23 countries that don’t cooperate at all with ICE, another 60 cannot be counted on to consistently cooperate.

“There are about 30 countries that have been very difficult to work with that won’t take back their criminals, but at the same time we’re issuing business visas or student visas to those countries,” Cuellar told Attkisson. “So while we’re giving them the opportunity to come to the United States, they’re refusing, should I say, to take back the criminal aliens that belong to those countries.”

A bizarre Supreme Court opinion

Attkisson said a big part of the problem can be traced to a 2001 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Zadvydas v. Davis. In that case the high court ruled ICE may not keep criminal aliens in custody for longer than 180 days, with a few exceptions, from the time they are released from prison. Jacques was held for 205 days, but ultimately freed less than six months before he killed Chadwick.

“The Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. cannot indefinitely hold immigrant criminals if their own countries refuse to take them back. Cuban-born Abel Arango had multiple felony convictions in the U.S. for armed robbery, burglary and grand theft,” Attkisson said.

“A judge ordered his deportation, but Cuba refused to take him back. He was released in Miami, later arrested for five felony cocaine charges, released again, and — in 2008— he gunned down a Ft. Myers, Florida police officer, Andrew Widman,” she added.

Cuellar, while backing Babin’s bill, said there is already a law on the books that the U.S. could enforce and clean up the mess with uncooperative nations.

While it doesn’t cut funding to those nations like Babin’s bill would, the existing law allows the U.S. to hold the visas of foreign nationals from nations not cooperating with ICE on criminal deportations.

“We found out that there’s a law already that allows us to hold those visas if a country’s not planning to take back their criminals,” he said in the Full Measure interview.

“We’re not enforcing it, which is amazing,” he added. “So now my intent is to go back to our committee on appropriations and affect their funding until they do that.”

Because of the Supreme Court decision, “that means you’re releasing criminals into our streets because those countries refuse to take back those criminal aliens. That’s wrong,” Cuellar said. “And especially I think it’s even worse that this is already on the books, and we’re still issuing business tourist visas and student visas to countries that refuse to take back their criminal aliens. That’s wrong, and we’re hoping to change that.

So why does the U.S. not enforce an existing law that would provide a measure of pay-back to uncooperative nations? Cuellar lays the blame at the feet of the U.S State Department.

“… I’ve been working on this issue and they said ‘well you know you gotta understand diplomacy, we don’t wanna upset some of those countries,'” Cuellar told Attkisson.

“But my response is, but we can upset our constituents, we can upset our way of life that we have here by allowing those criminals to be released? And basically the response from the State Department is because you have to work with the State Department and Homeland Security. And the State Department, with all due respect, was focused on diplomacy. I understand that, but I’m also concerned about individuals here who are in their neighborhoods; and you can release a criminal because we can’t hold them anymore and that county refuses to take back that criminal alien.”

Cuellar says he plans to press for the U.S. to withhold visas from countries that won’t accept the return of their criminals.